The Bective Abbey research excavation is what the Co-Director of the site, Dr Geraldine Stout refers to as ‘Slow’ archaeology. This low-tech traditional excavation is a million miles away from the TV’s Time Team and is in many ways as much a social experiment as it is research project. This series will allow the listener to join in on the discovery of new things about Bective Abbey and it’s surroundings; learn alongside the site’s student volunteers; take a visit to and hear from the experts showcasing many of Meath’s Heritage sites, and most of all listen in on the hard-earned tea breaks, end-of-day pints and on-site ‘craic’.

In the first episode we will document a typical day on a research excavation in a rain-prone Ireland. We meet the ‘old school’ archaeologists and new students as they arrive on the site. This episode introduces the feature series’Pièce de résistance, our very own ‘Confession Portaloo’, where the team will be encouraged to share their every experience and perhaps grievance with the microphone in an effort to enhance the comical/social experiment aspect of the dig. A Day in the Life of a Digger will take the listener from the aching muscles in the morning to the all important tea break all the way to ‘down tools’ and a pint at Crockets in Bective village.